Inevitable
by CurlsOfGlory
Summary: "Even with all of her cautious and paranoid planning, she hadn't known what her downfall would be or what her match would look like—or that they were indeed one and the same and wielding a bow and arrow." Running from the inevitable is impossible, but that doesn't stop Natasha from trying.


She marches alone. Alone is what she knows best and therefore she thinks nothing of the eerie silence that fills her ears at all times. A normal human would crave the touch of another after being cut off from the world as long as she had been, but she knew that she was far from normal. To others, the touch of a person was comforting. To her, it was something that only caused bad memories to resurface.

She never once trusted someone. She firmly believed that her fate rested in her own hands and those who trusted others had no control over their fate. Despite the fact that love was nothing more than a four-letter word to her, she might venture to say that she loved control.

But there had to come a day when she would meet two things: her downfall and her match. Fate and history had told her this much. Even though she'd never admit it, the idea of her downfall looming over her head scared her very much.

So she lived in secret and alone, never once wondering what she was missing and what her downfall really was. She dropped off the grid, making it as though she never existed.

But despite her watchful eye and sweeping away her footprints everywhere she went, in the back of her head she knew that she couldn't escape her downfall or her match. But foolishly, she marched forward, unknowing right into a trap that fate and her skittish nature had woven expertly.

Her desire to evade her destiny was what landed her in the middle of a sticky web. How could she have foolishly believed that she could evade the inevitable? Even with all of her cautious and paranoid planning, she hadn't known what her downfall would be or what her match would look like—or that they were indeed one and the same and wielding a bow and arrow.

He was an expert with his bow and arrow—anyone with eyes could tell this at just a glance. So confusion hit her long before the pain did when the man with a bow hit her in the thigh once, and then the calf of the opposite leg. He wasn't far from her and she had nowhere to hide—a kill shot would have been easier than spelling your own name.

Just as the pain hit home and she collapsed on the ground, unable to move another limb, the man surprised her once more. As he knelt down and rolled her onto her back, he began to brush the dirt and dust away from her vivid green eyes. Though she didn't realize it at the time, what he was doing was an act of kindness—an unfamiliar concept to her.

"Just make it fast, please," she croaked, "I know you know who I am, but please, don't make this torture."

The man smiled softly down at her—another act of kindness—and shook his head. "I was sent here to kill you—Black Widow—but that's not what I'm going to do."

~.~

"My name is Natasha, not Black Widow."

"And my name is Clint, but you probably know me as Hawkeye."

Silence filled the room as Clint began to cut her black pants away, revealing her pale, blood-tinted skin, to his kind eyes.

"This is going to hurt," Clint whispered, as he gripped the arrow that had lodged itself in her upper thigh. Natasha nodded her head in recognition, bearing her teeth down and waiting for pain to fill her body. She had a high pain threshold from both genetics and training, but impromptu patch-ups always hurt.

"Three. Two. One," he counted down before giving the arrow a quick and sharp yank. Allowing no more than a soft hiss to escape her tightly clenched lips, Natasha watched as Clint tightly wrapped up her leg. When he nimbly hopped over her body to get to her other wound, she caught sight of a S.H.E.I.L.D. logo on his jacket.

"Tell me about yourself," Clint said conversationally as his scissors snipped away at her pant-leg.

"I'm sure there is nothing I can tell you that you don't already know," she mumbled, her basic abilities slowly being numbed by the pain and an overwhelming urge to sleep taking over her body.

"I didn't know that your name is Natasha," he stated, "and besides, you need to stay awake right now, and talking will make that easier."

In what could only be described as a weak moment, Natasha started to speak. "I am seventeen years old. I grew up in Russia and the only memories of a home—such that it was—are the memories that I have of the Red Room. I know nothing of my life before the Red Room or even how old I was when I was taken there. I was taught to fear things like compassion and above all else, love is taboo." Natasha faltered, instincts kicking in as tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Blinking away the tears before they could come, she continued. "I ran away three years ago. I haven't killed since I left. I don't want to kill anymore."

Natasha tried to fight as Clint picked her up and cradled her like a small child, but she found that there was no fight left in her. All her energy was gone, the pain had immobilized her body, and against all of her training, all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry against Clint's chest.

~.~

She did not cry against Clint's chest. She compromised with herself by no fighting him as he carried her up flights of stairs. She did, however, make sure to keep her distance as much as possible. It would have been much easier to let her body go limp against his strong one, but years of training made her shun human contact. Natasha strained her ears as she tried to identify the whirring sound that was quickly becoming louder and louder.

_Helicopter_.

"Why is she alive?" the deep voice of an angry man yelled.

"She'll be of more value alive than dead, Fury. I'll take care of her and nurse her back to health—she can be mine to deal with if that's what you want. But you'll thank me later."

Blackness continued to try to consume her as the angry man grunted in response.

"It's okay, I've got you," Clint whispered in Natasha's ear as she let her world fade to nothing.

~.~

No one can escape their downfall or their match—it simply isn't possible. Natasha Romanov tried her hardest too, but in the end, the fall of the Black Widow was nothing more than inevitable—just like the rise and set of the sun.

But with the end of the Black Widow came the rebirth of Natasha. As one chapter of her life came to a close, her story didn't end, but quite the opposite—it blossomed into a much richer and fuller story.

As for meeting her match, Clint surprised fate too. Maybe meeting her match hadn't meant what she had assumed it would—meeting someone who was just as good at killing people as she was. Maybe all along it had meant meeting someone who was the better half of her—someone who could make her grow in ways she couldn't have predicted or done on her own.

Being the Black Widow for so many years had taught her that she was capable of anything. Being Natasha Romanov for so few years had taught her that she wasn't as invisible as she thought she was. Meeting Clint Barton had shown her the wonders of knowing that someone—even if it was only one person—loved her with all of their heart and soul. Learning to love Clint Barton taught her that being alone hadn't ever been the answer.

**A/N: That was my first try with Avengers characters. PLEASE REVIEW!**

Being together was.


End file.
